Marin Readers' Forum for Dec. 15

As a former superintendent of Yosemite and associate regional director for the National Park Service in the Pacific West, I know first-hand the challenge Interior Secretary Ken Salazar faced at Point Reyes this month when deciding how best to steward our national park heritage. It is one that national park managers wrestle with constantly — how do we balance use of and protections for our clean water, wildlife habitat and other park resources?

Managers rely on science and the long-term public interest to achieve this balance. This estuary is rich — teeming with seals, fish and shorebirds. It is so important that Congress saw fit nearly 40 years ago to protect it as a "wilderness area." For that reason I join park service professionals nationwide in supporting the secretary's difficult final decision not to renew the expired permit for commercial oyster operations in Drakes Estero. Now your kids and grandkids can enjoy this priceless resource.

After reading the many letters to the IJ regarding the ouster of the Drakes Bay Oyster Co., I felt compelled to write about a side of the situation that seems to have been overlooked. Ken Salazar, as secretary of the Interior, is charged with protecting our country's natural resources from too much encroachment by humans and their polluting ways. He decided that the harm caused by the oyster farm outweighs any benefits that it might provide. In my opinion, he is making a mistake. Let me explain.

As a Marin native and (almost) lifelong resident and with one of my relatives involved in researching the indigenous history of Marin, I understand that humans have been harvesting oysters and other shellfish for many thousands of years. Ancient legends and modern reports are both rife with evidence that the health of the oysters directly correlates to what's happening with the health and general condition of the ocean itself.

Looking at a map of the coast it's plain to see that the oyster farm is located right where it can provide a leading indicator of any problems or changes to our local water (red tides, pollution, etc.). Getting rid of the oyster farm is tantamount to getting rid of the "Canary in the Coal Mine." By the way I am a vegetarian, a sailor and an ex-fisherman.

Jonah Nickolds, Sausalito

Vitriol is disturbing

The vitriol of "tolerant" Marin over the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. lease shows the refusal of partisans to see any good faith in their opponents — the same refusal that damns current national politics. Perhaps Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision not to renew the lease was really made on the basis of his understanding of the law in the Wilderness Act; perhaps it was to prevent another Hetch Hetchy precedent from occurring. Don't many of the conservatives writing in favor of the lease's renewal similarly want to deport undocumented residents simply because they did not follow the law? In fact, Secretary Salazar's history shows that he is anything but the radical environmentalist he is accused of being.

And, can't the environmentalists in favor of the decision agree that the minimal impact of the oyster farm, combined with its economic value and other benefits, might outweigh the need for the illusion of wilderness in Drakes Estero in light of the other development there and close by? I hike the Estero Trail regularly. I have never been put off by the farm; I have barely noticed its trappings. But I will greatly miss bringing home fresh oysters at the end of the day. I sure wish a compromise could have been found instead of the sickening insults I see daily in this paper.

Marc L. Sherman, Corte Madera

'Deeply grateful'

I am deeply grateful to Secretary Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for his decision not to renew a commercial nonconforming lease in Point Reyes National Seashore and allow Drakes Estero to achieve full wilderness status.

In 1975, the people of the Bay Area recognized there could be no wilderness in the GGNRA because of its proximity to urban populations. At a major public hearing, they told the federal advisory commission that served both parks, of the need for the largest possible wilderness at Point Reyes National Seashore. Following the commission's advice, Congress made a promise to the American people in the Point Reyes Wilderness Act of 1976 that this five-bay estuary, the ecological heart of the National Seashore, would achieve full wilderness designation in 2012.

The secretary recognized the dangers of precedent if the commercial use of the estero were allowed to continue after 2012. Environmentally, legally, and ideologically he kept the promise Congress made 36 years ago for the West Coast's only marine wilderness. I celebrate his decision to protect an outstanding place in the American landscape. He has protected the natural environment of Drakes Estero on our behalf and for all future generations.

Amy Meyer, San Francisco

Tired of oyster letters

Is the only concern in Marin County the oyster farm?

The first thing I have always read in the IJ is the Opinion Page letters. But not anymore.

This issue has become as opinionated and boring as the letters before the election.

What more is there to say that hasn't already been said several times over. Let this be solved in the courts and be done with it.

Carol Sheerin, San Rafael

novato SCHOOLs

Do what's best for kids

Last year, the Novato Unified School District shut down the outstanding academic program at Rancho Elementary, the best school in the district. Now the district is about to sabotage the proposed charter school that wants to bring one of the most proven and academically strong programs in the nation to Novato.

Why is the district acting against the interests of its students? The alleged reason is that the charter school will be too white. But it needn't be. The answer is simple: since minorities make up 35 percent of the district's students, ensure that the makeup of the new charter school reflect the demographics of the district. The district will say this is not doable. I say the district should summon up the courage and will to make it happen.

Instead, the district is coming up with all sorts of reasons to disallow the school.

Why?

The real reason that no one wants to acknowledge, at least in public, is that the new school will pull out the better students and lower the district's test scores. Instead of trying to make itself look good, the district should remember that its purpose and mandate is to provide the best education for all students. Instead of closing successful programs and prohibiting the charter school dedicated to academic excellence, the district would do well to implement the successful practices of these schools into all the schools in the district.

If the district's board hasn't the courage to fight for all its students, the people of Novato should find themselves board members who will.

Deborah Thompson, San Rafael

Diversity is important

Although long overdue, the decision of the Novato School Board to return Rancho to its neighborhood school status is appreciated. It takes courage to untangle the web of elitism that has existed for decades.

However, it now appears that the proposed charter school has become the phoenix rising out of the old Rancho Myth, with its petitioners representing largely the homogeneous group that existed before as Rancho families. Their promise to seek a diversified student body is weak — and, in fact, smacks of tokenism. Just like Rancho, the proposed charter school will require that parents are able to drive their kids outside of their neighborhood to the new school. Obviously many parents can't. Guess whom that leaves out.

The proposed curriculum, "Core Knowledge," does not exceed that that is already in place in NUSD schools. Novato teachers know this; people without specialized knowledge may not. Novato schools support high stake core standards already. If our schools do not demonstrate the highest API scores in the county, it is because Novato "scores" reflect inclusiveness of our many English Language Learners, special needs students, and struggling learners. We are not Tiburon, Ross or Kentfield. We are diverse.

To create a new institution on the back of a fragile public school budget is selfish. To support an institution that will disturb our diverse population is discriminatory.

Patricia Lynch Duffey, Novato

MARIN CITY-SAUSALITO

Don't polarize schools

The Marin City-Sausalito School District is planning to create two K-8 campuses — one focused around Willow Creek Academy, the charter school in Sausalito; the other around the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, based in Marin City.

I am dismayed a Marin district would even contemplate such a plan. Each campus will reflect the surrounding communities — one being predominantly black, the other white. Any diversity at either campus will be as it is now with a few children of color at Willow Creek, and very few white children at MLK Jr. Academy.

These campuses will be separate, but they will not be equal.

Marin City parents have expressed concerns for years that the Marin City-Sausalito School District board — composed mostly of members sympathetic to Willow Creek — has regularly provided more resources to Willow Creek, often at the expense of the Marin City-based MLK Jr. Academy. Some have thought that this new plan has always been the agenda of the Willow Creek-dominated board. Families from Sausalito will continue to select the Willow Creek charter campus. They will not cross the city line and select the MLK campus.

I urge the board to not make a decision that would further polarize Southern Marin.

The board is charged with the responsibility for all children in the district. No decisions should be made that benefit one group or community over the other.

Thurgood Marshall, future Supreme Court justice, argued in Brown v. Board of Education that the system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment, instead perpetuated inferior treatment in education. He eloquently stated: "We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust. ... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better."

The Marin City-Sausalito School board must do better.

Ethel Seiderman, San Anselmo

SCHOOL SHOOTING

Reasons for violence

With rampant violence in movies, TV, video games and some music is it really a surprise when violence erupts in a school? Steve Allen, before his untimely death following an auto accident, warned of the consequences of this adverse cultural change.

Stemming this pervasive media violence will not occur until demanded by the public. Meanwhile, many politicians gladly accept political contributions from the media responsible for portraying and often glamorizing violence.

Norman Miller, Tiburon

Gun control not answer

Within seconds of the first news of Friday's massacre in Connecticut, the usual suspects at MSNBC and throughout the leftist-biased media were already claiming that "this may finally be the moment" to enact more draconian gun control measures.

This reaction I expected, since I know liberals and their "never let a crisis go to waste" mindset. And, of course, an obvious truth — that these mass shooting events never take place at a gun range or a gun show — is not mentioned. Instead, the progressives always see greater and greater restrictions on the law-abiding and the sane as panacea.

Well, supposedly, our government-run schools are already protected by laws declaring such areas to be "gun-free zones" with serious criminal penalties for even bringing a firearm within several blocks of these artificial sanctuaries. What have these laws actually created? They have established safe hunting grounds where a lunatic bent on doing evil can be certain that he will have the only gun and a sufficient time frame to inflict mayhem.

My advice to people wanting to avoid such tragedies: keep yourself and your loved ones well clear of so-called "gun-free zones" — they are death traps.